The Children's Hunger Fund is one of the organizations the San Antonio Express-News is profiling as part of its annual Grace of Giving series.

“What we do is work with corporations, individual donors and acquire resources to equip those under-resourced churches,” said CHF Southwest regional director Michael Richards. “They're churches that have a heart for their communities but don't have the resources. They don't have the budgets to buy food from the food bank.”

Richards said that, with a small staff of six, his organization supplies about 37 churches each month, and the number continues to grow.

The organization also relies on volunteers, and by year's end, more than 3,000 will have offered their services to CHF, Richards said.

It will help more than 200,000 people this year, Richards said.

Oak Hills Church pastor Randy Frazee said the city should be aware that CHF is a global organization, which has also helped his church in distributing food to needy communities in third-world countries.

Its regional office, he said, makes San Antonio “fortunate their presence gives us a leg up in visibility.”

Frazee, who arrived here from Chicago nearly five years ago, said he learned that in San Antonio, one in four children have a “food insecurity” — meaning they might not know where they'll get their next meal.

“That really shocked me,” Frazee said. “In a city that gets a lot of publicity, where we're doing better than the rest of the country and even in Texas, there are still young children going hungry.”

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The agency needs cash donations, funding and volunteers, and wants to create relationships with churches and corporations.

Also needed are nonperishable food, new clothing and new toys.

He noted the swine flu scare that closed Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City Independent School District in 2009 revealed some of those faces. Journey Fellowship, one of five of Oak Hills campuses, helped some of those children, and Frazee said CHF is vital in situations like that.

Overall, Frazee said, it's not just that CHF helps provide food to children and families, but “the way in which it does it that's a real transformation.”

Instead of having people line up at a soup kitchen or to listen to someone minister in exchange for a meal, CHF instead brings community to the needy.

“They go the extra mile to train volunteers. They put dignity, relationship and community back in it,” Frazee said. “Having CHF is really critical.”